Autumn 2

We have had a fabulous, fun and fulfilling second half term in Reception!

We started off this half term by looking at the book 'Room on the Broom' by Julia Donaldson. The children engaged in potion making, explored the different characters in the story and wrote down what they would like to put in their own made-up potions! In Maths, we began the half term by learning to recognise numbers up to 5 by sight, using dice games and visual representations.

Next, we explored the book 'Leaf Man'. The children took a wonderful trip to the forest to see how Autumn affects the leaves and trees and to see what different forest objects we could find and bring back to school. The children then made their own leaf people out of our findings!. We wrote about where leaf man might travel to next in the story. In Maths, the children explored number and counting and really enjoyed using musical instruments to represent a number of sounds to then count along to.

After that, we looked at the famous book 'The Gruffalo'! The children used interesting describing words to talk and write about the Gruffalo and then ended up creating their own imaginary creatures! We explored 2D shapes and went on a hunt to find these around the school!

We then moved on to the story of 'Jack and the Flum Flum Tree'. The children created their own treasure maps similar to the island in the story and described the features of their maps. We thought about useful objects to take tho the desert island and gave reasons for these. We looked at different 3D shapes and used our knowledge from the previous week to find 2D shapes within them. The children can name a range of 3D shapes and find these in the real world!

We explored different celebrations and festivities that are celebrated in the UK and around the world. Sharing pictures of the children enjoying a range of celebrations was really lovely and allowed us all to learn about a range of cultural and religious differences and similarities. The children learnt about capacity and use the words full, half full, empty, nearly full and nearly empty to describe levels of liquid within containers. We then poured out drinks for a party using this vocabulary.

The Nativity was the major highlight for all of Early Years this half term and really brought the Christmas season into effect across the entire school. The children worked so hard rehearsing and learning their lines and songs to put on three fantastic shows for the parents and other year groups to enjoy. WELL DONE EVERYONE!

Finally we explored 'The Jolly Christmas Postman' as part of our Christmas time learning. The book sees a postman deliver different letters to characters from well-known stories. The children wrote lists of gifts they would like to receive. They also wrote Christmas cards and learnt about letters and why we post them. In Maths we connected some counting learning to Christmas themes and learnt the song The 12 Days of Christmas.

It has been such a bust half term and the children have thoroughly enjoyed everything we have done. We can't wait to see what's next as we start the Spring term!

 

Autumn 1

What a fabulous start to the school year we have had!

All the children have settled in extremely well and have made many new friends.

We started the term by reading the story ‘Boris Starts School’. We did lots of circle times to get to know each other and to talk about how we were feeling about starting Reception. We were all very excited, although some of us were feeling a little nervous. We have got to know our teachers and what our school day looks like.

We then moved on to looking at ‘What makes me, me?’ We spoke about how we are similar and different to our friends; skin, hair, eyes etc. We all did a wonderful self-portrait, really looking at the different features that we have. We spoke about our likes and dislikes and how it is okay to be different from our friends. We looked at how we have changed since we were babies and all the things that we can now do.

After this, we read the story ‘The Colour Monster’. We had discussions about our feelings and how it is okay to feel these different emotions. We made our own Colour Monster puppets and used these in our play.

We then moved on to the story of ‘Elmer’. We learnt how Elmer was different and unique from all of the other elephants. We had our own ‘Elmer Day’ where we designed our own face-painting pattern and the teachers painted our faces.

We finished the half term by looking at ‘Giraffes Can’t Dance’. We spoke to our partners about the things that we cannot do and the things that we can do. We discussed how we need to have a ‘can do’ attitude and say ‘I can try’ just like Gerald the Giraffe. It is not that we can’t do it, it is just that we can’t do it ‘yet’.

 

Throughout the term we have been practising our phonics. We have learnt so many sounds and have been using these to read and write many CVC words. In maths we have learnt about more and less, how to compare quantities and how to make repeating patterns to just name a few things.

 

It has been an amazing start to the year and we cannot wait for next half term!